Steven Gerrard joked how Calum Chambers must have honed his finishing ability alongside Thierry Henry at Arsenal following his wonder strike at Leeds. The centre-back brilliantly lashed home into the far top left-hand corner to wrap up a 3-0 victory at Elland Road.
Steven Gerrard said: “You’d think he’s been around Thierry Henry at some point with finishes like that. We certainly don’t take any credit for that. That was certainly the knock-out blow, the icing on the cake if you like. After that moment, it was about really respecting our goalkeeper and defensive lads that they wanted a clean sheet. The third was the knockout blow. It took a lot of air out of Leeds. (Chambers) has been absolutely class ever since he walked through the door.”
On Villa’s sweet win on the road – and their third on the bounce –
Steven Gerrard added: “It was very satisfying. You can’t expect any more from the players. I’m extremely proud about how they went about their work tonight. I think we thoroughly deserved our win. We did it with control and we dominated the majority of the game. It’s not easy coming to a team with a change of manager. The crowd, the atmosphere, we had to control a lot of things tonight. I look around my team and everyone delivered tonight. I loved it. But we didn’t actually start either half as well as I wanted. That’s the only thing I’ve said to the players in terms of a negative but, once we settled into both halves, some of the football we played and how we dominated out of possession again, was a real plus. Three wins on the spin with three clean sheets. We’re obviously doing something right. Our goalkeeper was extremely quiet tonight.”
Villa are into ninth in the Premier League and, when asked where his side can finish come May,
Steven Gerrard replied: “You’ll get sick and tired of me saying this but my job is to keep everyone calm. It’s three wins and the players and staff deserve praise but, at the same time, we want to keep resetting it. We’ve got a really tough game at the weekend, West Ham are flying high again.”